Budapest Guide
The city limits
New Public Cemetery
Opening time: Daily 8am– dusk
Price: Free
Address: X district of Pest
The New Public Cemetery (Új köztemető) is located beyond the breweries of Kőbánya, near the end of one of the longest tram rides in town (#28 or #37 from Népszínház utca, near Blaha Lujza tér). Budapest's largest cemetery – reflecting the city's growth in the latter half of the nineteenth century – its significance lies in the fact that it was here that Imre Nagy and 260 others, executed for their part in the Uprising, were secretly buried in unmarked graves in 1958. Any flowers left at Plot 301 were removed by the police until 1989, when the deceased received a state funeral on Hősök tere. The plot is 2km from the main gates on Kozma utca; minibuses shuttle back and forth every twenty minutes. Near the graves, an ornate wooden gateway and headposts mark a mass grave now designated as a National Pantheon – as opposed to the Communist pantheon in Kerepesi.
The adjacent Jewish cemetery (Mon– Fri & Sun 8am–2pm; free) is the burial place of Ernő Szép (author of The Smell of Humans, a searing Holocaust memoir), as well as many rabbis and industrialists. Beside the wall on Kozma utca stand the grand crypts of the Goldberger and Kornfeld manufacturing dynasties, and the dazzling blue-and-gold tiled Art Nouveau tomb of shopkeeper Sándor Schmidl, designed by Ödön Lechner and Béla Lajta (who later became supervisor of Budapest's Jewish cemeteries). The gates to the Jewish cemetery are 700m up the road from the New Public Cemetery; tram #37 runs past.